


Don't Read The Last Page

by c0balt



Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: hardwon doesn't die but he's close and they talk about it, im posting this to get it out of my notes app so i don't have to think about it anymore, it's a real bummer, only vaguely hardshine but i tagged it anyway, spoilers thru episode 99, this is the result of my civil wars spiral intersecting with my taylor swift spiral at 3am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28255080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/c0balt/pseuds/c0balt
Summary: As Hardwon faces a new beginning, Moonshine reconsiders a long-held belief.
Relationships: Moonshine Cybin & Beverly Toegold V, Moonshine Cybin & Hardwon Surefoot, Moonshine Cybin & Hardwon Surefoot & Beverly Toegold V, Moonshine Cybin/Hardwon Surefoot
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	Don't Read The Last Page

“It just ain’t fair.”

Hardwon laughed at that— a short, strong laugh, like it had been punched out of him, a laugh that ended just as abruptly as his old lungs turned to coughing. Moonshine held his hand through the fit and handed him a pint of ale once it subsided. 

He thanked her with a smile and drank. Slower than he used to. His hair and beard, still thick, had held onto their orange as long as they could, (Melora bless his mother’s genes) but now his whiskers were as white as the foam that stuck to them. 

He wiped his mouth and his smile grew again. “What’s not fair? Dying?” Moonshine shrugged. “Century and a half, never heard you talk like that. What happened to death being beautiful?”

“Life’s beautiful too,” she said, eyes fixed on their hands: his sun-spotted, wrinkled, and softer than they’d ever been, hers untouched by the centuries. “Me an’ Bev are lookin’ at thousands of years of it. We spost’a do that without you?”

He took his hand from her soft grasp and ran his fingers through her hair. She met his eyes, no longer fighting to keep her own dry. His brow flattened with concern. “Hey. Hey. Whoa. No— none of that. Not over me.”

Moonshine wiped her face. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, I didn’t— you don’t have—“ he took as deep a breath as he could. “Here, why don’t you...” He pressed his hands into the mattress, scooting himself over, little by little. 

Moonshine climbed on the bed carefully— no jumping, not anymore— and curled into Hardwon's side, hands resting on his stomach, careful not to put too much weight on his bad shoulder. His chest sank as he exhaled—no struggle this time— and she felt his heartbeat slow as he relaxed. 

He covered her hands with his free one. “Where _ is _ Bev?”

“At the library with the grandkids.” 

“Ah.”

The crick library had recently installed a lightly-used waterslide. Lightly used, of course, by the test dummy at the Gladeholm waterpark before the council declared it “unfathomably hazardous,” “unconscionable,” and a whole bunch of other fancy university words. All the better for the crick folk: getting stuck upside-down at the top of the loop until the next person knocked you over was half the fun. If you tried hard enough, you could fit a bunch of youngins up there and they’d slam into each other like billiard rocks. 

When Cooter had told them Hardwon’s... timeline, Beverly had volunteered to take his youngest’s little ones to the crick, give her a bit of a break. Moonshine thought he might have wanted somethin’ to take his mind off all the helpless worry, a reason to visit besides the unthinkable. She couldn’t blame him, but she couldn’t make herself leave this room. Not when Hardwon was in no state to follow. 

“What am I gonna do?” she murmured against his chest. 

“Visit, I hope.”

“You really ain’t scared, huh?”

“Nothing I haven’t done before.” He let out a chuckle. “Third time’s the charm, right?”

Moonshine had done that too. Felt that darkness, taken that swan dive. A few moments on the surface had felt like eternity in the empty between the open arms of her goddess and the pleading grasps of her boys, her family. Only silence and numbness until she was resuscitated by Bev's hands and Hardwon’s words:  _ not yet _ . 

“Thought I’d be more scared, if I’m bein’ honest.”

“That right?”

“Yeah. Well- you’re supposed to be, right? When it sticks. That’s it. Spost’a scare the shit outta you. But I'm— I'm not gettin that. I think—“ Another chuckle. “I think you talked me out of it. ‘Cuz now I just hope I turn into the fun kind of shrooms.”

“Don’t you dwarves do that thing where you set a boat on fire?”

“Oh yeah! Well shit, that’s cool too. I’ll toss a coin, I guess. Fuck, I shoulda thought this through when I had more time.”

Moonshine didn’t respond, but moved her top arm to hold him closer. 

“We knew, Moonie. There’s never been a way around it.” His voice was solid. 

Moonshine felt her eyes begin to well up again, so she closed them. No need for him to think he made her all upset. 

“I know.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I love you.”

“Love you too.”

Look at her.  _ Walls up _ . Wishing, for the first time in what would be a very long life, that she were selfish. That nature would neglect its duty to reclaim what it had given her. 

Because the last 150 years had been just that, hadn’t they? A gift. She’d bought them an extra 80 or 90 when she’d reincarnated him, begged Melora to give him the very body she clung to now. They’d been given a century and a half to spend together, and they hadn’t wasted a minute of it. But it wasn’t enough. 

“I need you,” she whispered, almost inaudible.  _ Selfish _ . She drowned the word out, speaking louder: “I need you.”

Hardwon snored softly in response, mouth comfortably agape. 

The creak of a floorboard stirred Moonshine from her half-sleep. 

“Sorry,” Beverly said quietly. He bent down to scratch Pawpaw, who had fallen asleep in a pile of red tape, both the legal kind and the sticky kind he just liked to play with. 

Bev stopped in his tracks when he saw Hardwon’s eyes closed. “He’s not… is he—“

“He’s hangin’ in there,” Moonshine said, and Hardwon snored loudly in confirmation. 

Bev’s shoulders dropped in relief and he let his head roll back as he blinked his eyes dry. After a moment, he gave up, dropping to his knees and sobbing into his hands. 

“Aw, Bev...”

Careful not to wake Hardwon, (he tranced like a rock, but still) Moonshine rolled onto her feet and rushed over to Bev. She knelt in front of him and he buried his brow in the crook of her neck as she held him. Not one single gray hair on that head. Years ago, when Erlin had started balding, Moonshine had shaved a “solidarity circle” on Bev’s head. It had grown back in two weeks, his curls just as thick and dark as they’d always been. Youthful as he’d always be. 

“This just... it can’t be happening. It’s not real.”

Moonshine rubbed circles on his shoulder. “I know. We just gotta be here for him, y’know?”

Bev nodded silently, not moving his head from her shoulder. They stayed like that for a while, until Bev sat up and took deep breaths until he’d ironed out the shakiness in his lungs. Moonshine wiped what tears remained off his face. 

“Where them little ones at?”

“Petri’s,” he said. “They’re having a Cricketeer slumber party.”

“Aw, that’s real nice.”

“Yeah. It’s good for them, you know? As much as I love Hill Home, it’s a little too stuffy for scouting.”

Hardwon snored again, and Bev looked close to tears again. 

Moonshine patted his shoulder. “You wanna go to bed?”

“Yeah,” Bev said, standing. “It’s getting real late.”

“Late? Sun ain’t up yet!” Moonshine said, smiling. “You’re an old man, young’in.”

Bev laughed. “Maybe I am.”

They climbed on opposite sides of the bed, sandwiching Hardwon. 

“I keep forgetting he’s done this before,” Bev said. “ _ You’ve _ done this before.”

“Mhm.”

“Is it... what does it feel like?”

Moonshine took a second to consider. “It’s a little lonely,” she decided. “Cold. But I hung out for a second there, he’s got places to go, y’know? So I guess it’ll be less of a cosmic waiting room and more like a road trip.”

Bev nodded. 

“We can still see him if we want to. Planeshift and all that. I wouldn’t mind an excuse to see Lydia.”

Bev chuckled. “He’s just moving in with his mom!”

That made Moonshine smile too. “Yeah.”

It didn’t feel that simple. It felt like she was about to lose a hand. People live with one hand (it’s actually super common at the Crick. Sometimes you noodle for catfish and get a gator instead. It happens.) but you don’t actually know what it’s going to be like to be without it until it’s real. You can put your hand behind your back and pretend, but you’re still free to take it back out and tie your shoes the way you always have. You don’t know what it’s actually like to lose a part of yourself until it happens to you. 

She didn’t want people to know her without Hardwon. She didn’t want them to know her and Bev as a pair, but they would. Generations would be born and die without knowing what they missed. 

“Moonshine?” She looked over at Bev, who reached his hand out. She took it. “We can do this.”

They took a breath together. 

“Yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from New Year's Day by Taylor Swift, but this was heavily inspired by C'est La Mort by the Civil Wars, one of the best songs in the world which has also thoroughly ruined my life.


End file.
